Twitter removes suspicious users from the subscriber account again, blames the bug

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) made another attempt to make subscriber subscriber accounts more accurate on Friday, subtracting millions of suspicious members who had re-appeared on the social media service since a major purge in July.

Twitter is under pressure to tackle its fake users problem, which is disconcerting to investors and advertisers and has led to scrutiny by the US Congress.

The company moved on Friday without making an announcement. Pop star Katy Perry has lost about 861,000 subscribers, according to social measurement firm Social Blade. Twitter's account lost 2.4 million followers.

In July, Twitter announced that it would stop counting the "blocked" accounts as subscribers, in order to make the data of its users more precise. At least seven celebrities have lost up to 2 million followers each.

By October, however, many of these accounts appeared to have been unlocked – which may happen after a password reset – and at least two dozen popular users had recovered a third of the lost subscribers, according to the data of the company. 39, a Russian researcher in advertising fraud Social Puncher.

These supporters disappeared again on Friday, said Social Puncher.

Twitter said Friday that she had "discovered a bug in which some of these accounts had been briefly added, which led to a misleading account of followers" for "very few accounts".

In July, the number of followers could change "more regularly" as part of its efforts to "identify and challenge problem accounts". The resulting volatility has attracted the attention of known users, including US President Donald Trump and Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O) Executive Director Elon Musk.

These and other users have lost subscribers in recent days, but Friday 's slaughter has been more important for most of them, according to several Reuters reports on Social Blade.

Twitter's account dropped by 7.8 million members in July but gained 2.36 million by mid-October. He lost 2.4 million on Friday, according to Social Blade.

Some users saw a similar drop in early October, before the followers return a few days later, said Social Puncher.

The company told Reuters it suspected the locked accounts concerned of being controlled by fraudsters who sell subscribers to artificially increase the popularity of the accounts.

The accounts show counterfeit brands, including some profile details, fans and messages, he said.

MarQuis Trill, a Los Angeles advertising producer, told Reuters that he had bought 300,000 subscribers for $ 4,500 two years ago. He lost nearly 2.2 million followers in July, but had regained about 30% of his income until Friday's purge.

"I did not buy as many players to lose this way," he said.